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MAR21

MAR25

Laramie - About 22,000 pheasant chicks hatched at Downar Game Bird Farm near Yoder in recent weeks. Each spring, eggs are collected from 1,350 laying hens. Each hen lays around 50 eggs. There is about an 85 percent hatch rate for the eggs. They are incubated for 24 days, and the newly hatched chicks are moved into brood houses when they are a few days old. Brooder houses are kept at 95 degrees for a week, then the temperature is dropped 5 degrees per week for the next few weeks. After 4 weeks, the heat is shut off. The goal is to get around 22,000 chicks, and with about 5,500 per hatch it takes roughly two months to complete four hatches each spring.